Comments on: How Do You Write A Movie Review Without Naming Its Characters?

By: mike

mike — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:54:34 +0000

Media coverage is inconsistent. Look at Doug McKelway defending Crist saying the makers of Outrage are ‘hurting his family’ in the interview with Mike Rogers.

People will discuss anyone’s explicit personal info as long as they are straight.

http://news.aol.com/article/angry-anchor/478089

By: Christopher Waldrop

Christopher Waldrop — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:42:38 +0000

While I also have problems with outing, what really concerns me in this story is NPR’s decision to keep Larry Craig’s name out of the review, citing a policy of “trying to respect the privacy of public figures”.

Incidentally, though, a search of the NPR web site for “Larry Craig” brings up 254 results, with several in the top 20 (I didn’t go through the whole list) related to his arrest for soliciting sex. And obviously Craig’s name comes up in Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Kirby Dick.

And, finally, on the NPR web site, although Craig isn’t mentioned, there is an insert with Craig’s profile shot and an explanation that, “Craig was arrested in 2007 by an undercover officer who said Craig had solicited sex from him in a Minneapolis airport restroom.”

I’m not trying to defend NPR here. What I really see is an incredibly inconsistent, maybe even non-existent, policy. If Crist hasn’t been caught publicly soliciting or engaging in sex with other men then it’s reasonable that NPR would be cautious with his name. But stripping Larry Craig out of the review doesn’t make sense.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:05:59 +0000

I’m a little confused by Mr Kincaid’s term of “troglodyte haters”. Are troglodyte’s one of America’s vulnerable minorities? It certainly gives a new meaning to an underground political group.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:26:57 +0000

I’m not a big fan of outing to begin with. I think we each should be entitled to our own process of discovery and our own disclosures.

However, I do recognize the argument about exposing the hypocricy of those who are actively hurting our community. I do get that exposing homosexuals who are strident anti-gay activists can protect our community at times.

But I would be more impressed with Outrage if the targets of its expose were actually anti-gay activists, if they “had a record of voting for vigorous” anti-gay positions.

But let’s face it. Neither David Dreier nor Charlie Crist have strongly homophobic records. Neither have made careers out of anti-gay attacks.

Yes, we can hunt up votes in which they were not supportive and point and cry “hypocricy”. We could even find positions or votes that were harmful.

But, frankly, I think that the greatest crime, in the mind of Kirby Dick, is that they are Republicans. And perhaps even that they are Republicans who do not conveniently fall into the stereotype of troglodyte haters, but rather are on the moderate end of the party.

We can conveniently forget that David Dreier voted for ENDA and that he opposed the FMA. We can forget that Crist has spoken favorably about civil unions. We can say that ANY vote that doesn’t fit with some checklist is cause for exposure and outrage.

But I hope we don’t.